FEATURES:Fakhri Saleh, The Arabic Novel at the Beginning of the 21st Century: the Thematic Thread of HistoryLeila Abouzeid , Grandfather’s storyNiki Seth-Smith , Art into RealityOliver J. Dimsdale, The Last Stand of Representational Painting? Sarah Ardizzone, Back to the Bled: Faïza Guène’s new novelSimon Andrewes, The Gypsy Ballad Book

Cover: Laila Shawa, Mirage, detail, 2008, Watercolour on paper, 30x30cm, Study for a larger painting which will be 100x100cm, From Series Fatama Morgana

Adam Day was Poetry Editor for Washington Square, the national literary journal of New York University, as well as an Instructor of Creative and Expository Writing. In 2008 he won the Madison Review poetry contest. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, Antioch Review. Adnan Al-Sayegh is one of the most original voices from the generation of Iraqi poets known as the Eighties Movement. He lives in London.Agnes Meadows has an established reputation on the Performance Poetry scene both in the UK, and internationally. Agnes has read and given workshops at a host of festivals across Europe, the USA and the Middle East. Agnes runs two successful poetry events in London, and has written four books of poetry, with a fifth entitled This One’s For You published by Flipped Eye in 2007. Agnes has also produced a CD of her poetry with music, called Blues Shakin’ My Heels.Amal Nawwar is a Lebanese poet and translator. In 2004 she published her first poetry collection A Crown on the Edge (Dar Al-Farabi). Her second poetry collection was published by Dar Al-Nahda in spring this year, Hers Is Blue Wine and Intimate to Glass. Her poems have been translated into French and Spanish. Her work has been published in the daily An-Nahar and Al-Hayat newspapers.Amjad Nasser is a Jordanian poet and is managing editor and cultural editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily newspaper. He has published many volumes of poetry and one travel book. An anthology of his poetry has been published in Cairo, and he has two volumes of selected poems in French and Italian respectively. Ben Tallon earned a degree in illustration before starting Ben and Ink Illustration. benandink@gmail.com, www.benandink.co.ukDavid Caddy is a poet, editor and critic. He edits the international literary magazine, Tears in the Fence, and presents So Here We Are: Poetic Letters From England monthly on MiPOradio. His latest poetry book is Man in Black published by Penned In The Margins. www.miporadio.net/davidcaddy; www.pennedinthemargins.co.ukDavid Phillips has won poetry prizes and his poems have appeared in magazines both here and abroad. His first book, Man in the Long Grass was published in 2001 by Iron Press. Many of these poems have been reprinted in various anthologies. He is the author of radio plays broadcast by RTE and Radio 4. Dr. Barbara Bridger is a writer and an academic; she also works as a freelance director and dramaturge. Currently Co-Director of Writing and Associate Lecturer in Theatre at University College Falmouth.Elizabeth Smither was New Zealand’s first woman poet laureate (2001-3). Her most recent collection of poems is The Year of Adverbs (Auckland University Press, 2007). She also writes fiction. Her latest collection of stories, The Girl Who Proposed, is longlisted for the Frank O’Connor short story prize. Faïza Guène was born in France in 1985 to Algerian parents. She wrote her first novel, Just Like Tomorrow when she was 17 years old. She lives in Pantin, Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb north of Paris.Fakhri Saleh has published many books about Arabic Literature. He has edited many books about Modern Arabic Poetry and translated works in literary theory from English into Arabic. Prizes include: the 1997 Palestine Prize for Literary Criticism and the 2003 Ghalib Halasa Prize for his cultural contribution to literary criticism and translation from English into Arabic. He contributes regularly to many journals and newspapers in the Arab world, including Al-Hayat based in London, and Awan based in Kuwait. He was the Vice President of the Arab Writers Union and is now the head of the cultural department in Ad-Dustour daily based in Amman (Jordan). He is the head of the Jordanian Association of Critics.Fathieh Saudi was born in Jordan. She published her first collection of poetry, The Prophets, A Poetic Journey from Childhood to Prophecy in 2007 and is working on her second collection, Daughter of the Thames. James Wilkes has written poetry, criticism and radio comedy. His website is www.renscombepress.co.uk.Jenny Newman is the author of two novels, Going In and Life Class, and the editor of The Faber Book of Seductions, and co-editor of Women Talk Sex, The Writers’ Workbook and British and Irish Novelists.John Siddique is the author of Poems from a Northern Soul, Editor of Transparency (both Crocus Books). His children’s book Don’t Wear it on Your Head, Don’t Stick It Down Your Pants (Peepal Tree Press) was shortlisted for the CLPE Poetry Award. He is Poet in Residence for Blackpool. www.johnsiddique.co.ukJoumana Haddad was born in Lebanon. A poet and translator, who speaks seven languages, Joumana is chief editor of the cultural pages of the Lebanese daily An-Nahar. In 2006 she won the Arab Press Prize in Dubai. She has five collections of poetry, including Return to Lilith (translated and published in Banipal No 24, 2005). She has translated several works of poetry and prose into and from Arabic with selected poems of her own translated into several European languages. www.joumanahaddad.com.Katy Evans-Bush’s poetry and essays have been published on both sides of the Atlantic, most recently in Poetry London, The Dark Horse and Stand. She writes the literary blog Baroque in Hackney (www.baroqueinhackney.wordpress.com) and her first poetry collection, Me and the Dead, is published by Salt.Leila Abouzeid is the first Moroccan woman writer of literature to be translated into English. She has written three novels, Year of the Elephant, Return to Childhood, and The Last Chapter, as well as a book of stories entitled The Director and Other Stories from Morocco. Mahmoud Shukair was born in Jabal Al-Mukaber, Jerusalem in 1941. His work includes twelve novels and sixteen children’s books, such as: Portrait of Shakira (2003), Charming Cities and a Frivolous Wind (J2005), Mirrors of Absence (2007). His work has been translated into a numerous languages including English, French, Spanish and Chinese.Melysha Meraee is a published poet, playwright, essayist and novelist. Her work can be seen in numerous venues in the U.S. and on-line through the International Museum of Women’s Imagining Ourselves series. She is a teacher and draws on her roots as a first-generation Iraqi born in Chicago.Nicholas Royle was born in Manchester in 1963. He is the author of five novels—Counterparts, Saxophone Dreams, The Matter of the Heart, The Director’s Cut and Antwerp —and one short story collection, Mortality. He has edited twelve anthologies including A Book of Two Halves (Phoenix), The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writers’ Dreams (Serpent’s Tail), The Time Out Book of New York Short Stories (Penguin), and Dreams Never End (Tindal Street Press). He teaches Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.Nja Mahdaoui is one of Tunisia’s leading contemporary artists. He has traveled and exhibited his works Sarah Ardizzone won the Scott Moncrieff Prize (2007) for Just Like Tomorrow by Faïza Guène and the Marsh Award (2005) for Eye of the Wolf by Daniel Pennac. She got hooked on French/Arabic backslang while living in the Algerian quarter of Marseille. Sarah is the Literary Events Director of International PEN, where she recently curated a world literature festival along London’s south bank, Free the Word!Sargon Boulus was born in Iraq. Sargon is well known as an accomplished translator into English. He has already translated poems of such authors as Ezra Pound, Shakespeare, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Robert Duncan and many other poets including Rilke, Neruda, Vasko Popa and Ho Chi Minh.Satta Hashem is an Iraqi born artist. He has exhibited extensively and his work forms part of the collection at the British Museum. www.sattahashem.com Sean Elliott is a widely published poet and essayist. He teaches Creative Writing at Birkbeck College and also works for Foyles Bookshop.Simon Andrewes re-discovered Lorca when he went to Granada to teach English for the British Council in 1990. A 20-year-long dormant fascination was re-awakened and soon turned into an obsession about all aspects of the Andalusian poet’s life, work, times, and death.Tahseen al-Khateeb was born in Zarka, Jordan. His poems and translations have appeared in Sentence, To Topos, The Monthly Review, QLRS, among others. His translation of Charles Simic’s The World Doesn’t End is forthcoming this year from Afaq Publishing House in Egypt.Tim Cumming was born in a children’s home in Solihull to a 16-year old girl he would meet again some 37 years later. Publications include: Miniature Estate (Smith Doorstop, 1991), Apocalypso (Scratch, 1992), and The Rumour (Stride in 1999 and 2004), Contact Print (Wrecking Ball Press, 2002). Cumming writes about music for the Independent, has made a film about the English rock band Hawkwind for BBC4, and is currently working on a series of three-minute film poems.